Where Are the Pastors?

From The Forum Magazine, Winter 2025 - view the full issue here

As the 21st century brings ongoing changes for the global church – such as staffing, attendance, training, programs, and more – these shifts are especially and tangibly felt when considering pastoral training. Demands on pastoral leadership and capacity are increasing, and seminaries around the globe are adjusting their curriculum and program offerings to meet the needs of churches. Rev. Susan LaClear, Director of Candidacy for the Christian Reformed Church in North America, recently visited Calvin Theological Seminary for a video conversation on challenges churches are facing as they seek out a pastor, as well as how churches can proactively work to meet the need for pastors.

The Challenge of Finding a Pastor

For LaClear, today’s challenges can be summarized in five core areas:

Burnout: Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, pastors and leadership teams were feeling the exhaustion of intense programming, preaching schedules, and much more. The addition of political and racial tensions, decreased in-person attendance, and the pressures of caring for congregants in a time of a global pandemic prompted pastors to leave their positions at an alarming rate. Recent surveys show that 4 in 10 pastors considered leaving their position at least once since 2020, citing pandemic burnout as a primary reason for their departure. Another survey of pastors by Barna reveals increased satisfaction and confidence in their ministry roles. Despite this mix of statistics, vacant pulpits remain abundant throughout the world due to burnout.

Discernment: Another challenging aspect of identifying and training pastors is the reality that many today are taking a longer route of discerning their calling. LaClear noted that most people don’t
want to go directly from college to seminary, and instead take small steps in their career and ministry before making a full commitment. While this longer timeline of discernment can be frustrating, LaClear noted with gratitude that these pastors who have a longer discernment process earlier in life come to the pulpit with more life experience than those who go directly from college to seminary.

Underdeveloped Training: In addition to burnout, CRCNA classes leaders cite underdeveloped training processes, with 78% reporting they don’t have clear, consistent training programs for pastors and others interested in pursuing pastoral ministry. One example of underdeveloped training in many CRCNA classes is the training provided for ordination as commissioned pastor, which is a local ordination to a specific role of pastoral support within a church. With the absence of commissioned pastor programs and other training routes, it’s difficult for a local church or classis to equip those they’ve identified as prospective leaders.

Relocation: In her conversations with church councils and classes, LaClear noticed a repeated reason people aren’t entering the pastorate: no desire to relocate. Most people don’t want to uproot their families from a community they know and love to move to a new place. Others are dual income or bi-vocational, making relocation financially difficult to justify. LaClear addresses this concern by reminding people that, in addition to the commissioned pastor program, many Calvin Seminary programs and degrees are offered entirely online or in a hybrid format, removing the pressure of relocation.

Pressure to Specialize: LaClear noted that in the 1990s, the demand for pastors was much lower. Oftentimes, someone would attend seminary and have a difficult time finding a call because all the pulpits were full. But things are dramatically different today – not enough people are going to seminary, and consequently there are a lot of vacant pulpits. Some of these vacancies can be attributed to the pressure to specialize as a pastor. Young pastoral candidates are hesitant to take on a senior lead pastor role, as they feel the pressure to have a training or knowledge level they don’t think they have. Other candidates feel pressure to specialize to meet a programming need. Today, many churches are program driven, increasing the demand for pastors to work in a particular area of ministry. This pressure to specialize has resulted in some churches enjoying a large pastoral staff, when many smaller churches in their own classis don’t have a pastor at all.

The challenges posed to churches and future pastors -– burnout, discernment processes, underdeveloped training, relocation, and pressure to specialize -- are frustrating and, at times, seem
impossible to overcome.

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Addressing the Need for Pastors

How to remedy today’s critical need for pastors? For LaClear, five ideas come to mind:

Finances: A significant barrier for many prospective pastors is the financial burden of pursuing additional education. Churches and classes should be quick and consistent in reminding these students that financial support is available in abundance, both through their own classis, but also through Calvin Seminary. Calvin Seminary awards over $1.6 million in scholarships every year to students across all degree programs, including our Master of Divinity. In fact, it is possible to receive a seminary education without incurring debt!

Programming: Another way of addressing the need for pastors begins in the local church and the training programs it offers. Both individual churches and classes can work with the CRCNA’s Candidacy Committee led by LaClear to develop a commissioned pastor program that helps them source and train pastors locally. Pastors and councils should also seek to identify potential leaders in their own congregation and have regular conversations with them, whether it’s a high school student, current college attendee, or a layperson serving as an elder. As these people are identified, they can be directed towards the commissioned pastor route, connected with Calvin Seminary (who recently launched a Commissioned Pastor Certificate), or otherwise assisted in pursuit of pastoral training and vocational ministry.

Stories: The heightened burnout and tensions in the church -–not just the CRCNA, but on a global scale -– not only cause pastors to depart their ministries, but turn off potential future pastors from entering ministry. Now more than ever, storytelling is a key technique for addressing this pastoral shortage. LaClear advises individual churches and classes to regularly gather and disseminate stories of how God is at work in their local context and around the globe.

Connect to Calvin Seminary: A significant way of addressing the need for pastors is making your church aware of the programs and opportunities Calvin Seminary offers, not only for aspiring pastors, but all seeking to go into ministry, whether as a professor, counselor, teacher, or non-profit leader. Many commissioned pastors struggle to find a seminary education that meets their needs because they don’t know what’s out there.

Candidacy Committee: The CRCNA’s Candidacy Committee exists to help guide people through the
ordination process so they can become Ministers of the Word in the CRCNA. Susan LaClear and her team are excited to partner with churches and classes seeking to address the need for pastors in their local context through developing a commissioned pastor program that fits their community’s needs, connecting interested students to seminary education, and much more. 

The cultural and social shifts impacting the global church aren’t reason for panic. Rather, they’re an
opportunity to recognize and address current challenges, such as burnout and lack of local training. These shifts serve as a moment for local congregations and classes to regroup and reunite in their pursuit of identifying and training pastors. For better and worse, the pastoral landscape is changing. Let’s be a body of believers who addresses this need for full pulpits and confronts it head-on with collaborative solutions.